Television, Memory, and History: ‘Informal Knowledge’ of Doordarshan on the Internet1
. Volume 16, Issue 2 November 2019 Television, memory, and history: ‘Informal knowledge’ of Doordarshan on the Internet1 Sanjay Asthana, Middle Tennessee State University, USA Abstract: This article explores people’s memories of India’s state-run television, Doordarshan in the 1980s; a decade which witnessed rapid expansion of the television network and the emergence of a wide range of programs such as drama, classical and film-based music, historical, mythological, and fictional narratives, soap operas, sitcoms, serials, etc. Indeed, it is not unusual for people to have memories of their first encounters with television, the particular experiences of watching ‘favorite’ programs, remembering advertisements, jingles, parts of programs, television personalities, etc. The article foregrounds people’s memories of the everyday experiences, and knowledge of television paying heed to the argument of Darian-Smith and Turnbull (2012:1) that, ‘... the everyday ‘informal knowledge’ about television and its technology as experienced by those who are watching it has been displaced by the ‘formal knowledge’ of those equipped with the appropriate fashionable theory to analyze it.’ To this end, the article examines the ways in which people remember and reminisce about television, recuperate their familial, social, and cultural contexts of their viewing habits and practices, which although constructed around individual identity reveal a more collective intersection of culture and history. Keywords: television, history, memories, nostalgia, domestic, audience, viewing practices, publics, informal knowledge In a 2016 blogpost, psychologist Sadaf Vidha noted that nostalgia for India’s state-run television, Doordarshan has been on the increase on the internet.2 Sadaf ruminates on the role of nostalgia in activating memory networks, the generation of positive and negative associations and perturbation leading to a certain ‘stuckness’ in the past.
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